NEWS: In a surprising twist, regulators rejected Duke Energy’s proposed gas plant.

Too uncertain: Duke is trying to build a 255-MW gas plant, which the utility says it needs in order to meet growing data center demand. But that growth “appears to be based upon anticipated data center customer additions,” the North Carolina PUC wrote, which is "insufficiently reliable to the Commission to act at this point.” 

Too costly: One Commissioner noted that he supports gas as a fuel source, but that the $584 million price tag for the plant did not “provide reliability value.”